Yellow Crowned Night Herons are Back

A pair of Yellow Crowned Night Herons have shown up again this spring along the San Gabriel River near our house. We have seen two of them and are assuming they are a breeding pair.  This evening, on our walk, we were able to get photographs of both of them. They come out as the sun is fading, so hard to get a steady shot. These birds are hard to get close to. All images are taken with Canon SX-50 HS at 1200mm with heavy cropping.

Here is the first bird wading just above the weir at the crossing of the trail.  It seems to have much redder legs, coloration indicative of breeding season.

This is the second bird which we saw several hundred yards further upstream, across the river from the vulture roosting tree. Legs are less colorful than the first bird.

Update 2014-06-19 - Another one later in the season

Yellow-crowned Night Heron - Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L - ISO-800,  400mm, f/5.6,  1/160sec